Summer Sortings

Trying to think. Read. Write. And make work. And do all the other shit.

Drawings in progress on handplates for Les Corps Évocateur(E)s, Liverpool collaborative

Thoughts on breaking with purpose and breaking by accident, kintsugi, and my practice.

What happens when something is broken?

Falling apart vs breaking apart control

Is this how I control the chaos?

When something breaks, it is usually unintentional and by surprise. It may be an accident or trauma that has an unpredicted outcome. It may render itself dysfunctional and crippled and the repair might result in a reinvented version of its older self. Breaking, an object or body or metaphorically one’s spirit is an ACTION that is a restructuring, dis-structuring and undoing of something that was whole or presumed to be unified.

There is unexpected breaking which might have many outcomes both physically and emotionally. Damage reinvents the body, the object. Brokenness redefines functionality and purpose, becoming something unintentionally new, useless or ugly, with a new structure and existence. If a cup falls and breaks in two, it can no longer hold the tea for which is was made to do. It becomes a relic, a memento of what it was and what it could have been. The destruction of its objective pulverizes its value and utility. No longer can it fulfill what it was created to to, to contain liquid, to serve and carry, to be held and cradled and admired upon a shelf in between use.

Breaking with purpose or intention differs because it is controlled to an extent. Breaking an egg for an omelet. Breaking a lock open because you lost the key. Breaking off a piece of chocolate to share, making two of one. There is intention and purpose and control in this kind of destructruction.

What links these together? Is it that I see hope and possibility in rejuvenating and sharing what is broken? The destroyed can have new life after trauma, breaking can be good and give new purpose, a new mission, altered motives, and a determination to create a new identity. Alternately, this new state can be worthlessness. The value that was once held by form and function and identity no longer exists. As in aging, agility, beauty and memory wanes, creating a state of limbo - an in betweenness of living and not.

So much of this subject for me is about recreation and reinvention. Nothing must be wasted- find the beauty or purpose in the damaged; honor the past but move on from it. Fragments are documents of what once existed, clues of life and triggers of memory. Is there a time to throw away the broken? To let go? To send fragments to the trash heap of life? Why don't we value brokenness and damage as a opportunity for power in creativity to inspire resilience and rebirth?

In Kintsugi, damage is visible, adorned in gold to honor and highlight the beauty in it’s restoration. Function has been restored, in theory. The fractured body becomes one but a new “one”. When we see the repair we wonder about the trauma; we imagine how it was before the break and the event that initiated the damage. It becomes a record of both past and present, of rigidity and adjustment. The body object becomes a document of an event and evidence of both destruction and reconstruction. Every seam is filled and carefully holding together something fragile- it’s fragility brought into consciousness because the damage is still visible. We do not consider our fragility. We cruise through this dangerous and unpredictable world, going down impossible roads and precarious highways with a sense that we can and will make it through to our destination. Would we travel with ease if were reminded of the brokenness that is just a chance, and moment, a unpredictable encounter that could change our journey forever?

When I was pregnant with my first son, someone gave me a book, about what to expect during pregnancy, as a kindness to make me aware of the changes to my body and the possibilities good and bad. The book, this horrible book, brought to light the dangerous and terrible circumstances that might occur to my baby or me. To be informed, to prepare me for the worst possible outcome, created a huge amount of anxiety for me. In my ignorance, I was happy and content carrying my child without considering what could go wrong. Was I better of not seeing the risks? Kintsugi shows the risks of being, and that even with the hazards of life one can exist, not in it’s original state, but in a form that is imperfectly more beautiful.

How does that relate to my practice? It started from an accident that broke something precious to me, something I made with my hands, carefully, something planned and specifically executed.

I completed it. It was perfect in that it had emerged from my mind and traveled through my hands and emerged into the world exactly as I had imagined it. It was fragile and it was beautiful and I had dreamed it and made it real. I brought it into existence and gave it life. I cradled in my hands and moved to bring it to a place of safety and honor, where I could admire it and ponder it and wonder what to do next. Then it slipped out of my hands, in slow motion, falling for hours and days until it met the wood planks of the flooring, shattering into fragments. I couldn’t capture it, couldn’t save it from the death-plunge, rescue its wholeness. It was damaged beyond repair. I retrieved each disjointed shard, in shock and sadness and the keen awareness of what I had lost.

I put the fragments away, in a box, out of sight as to not be reminded of my failure- my inability to save and rescue, to keep something I loved safe, a memento of a rare success. I would come across that box of broken over the years, feeling tinges of regret yet slowly I accepted these pieces; in a state of disarray they became new things in a box. This acceptance enabled me to see them differently and over time enabled me to embrace their reinvented state as one of evolution and promise. Fifteen years passed. I came across the box of my disappointment and understood it’s value in reconfiguration. I could not save it as it was originally intended but I could resuscitate it in parts, show it’s beauty and importance as part of a union of damages.

In the crippled and discarded I could reinvent, not in it’s original ‘perfect’ form. I could heal it.

In the aftermath of the brokenness there is shock (trauma), regret, nostalgia or longing. Unplanned and deconstructed, a new reality or perception of what once was takes form.

Something beloved and used and cared for now is rendered shattered and dysfunctional; how do we move on from the trauma of the breaking, the state of brokenness?

Falling apart vs breaking apart control

Is this how I control the chaos? I have never considered myself to be an organized person, yet I am a community organizer. I know how to bring things together that may seem unrelated and I connect them. The world around me is in disarray. I was born from and into a fragmented existence; I had to find ways to pull myself together. When that was not possible I “fixed” what I could - and that is through my practice.

Humpty Dumpty as a theme.